I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with you.
1) "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed” now means "The right to keep and bear Arms NEVER EXISTED"? And that's objective?
2) It doesn't matter what the 2nd Amendment 'really' says, or how complicated a process the Founding Fathers went through to encrypt one clause of an amendment, because I don't get my rights from a piece of paper or from a group of individuals, I am given my rights by GOD.

Also,

Originally Posted by Swordsmyth

What utter drivel.

+rep --> Gave me a good laugh after reading and trying to understand the article.

Geoff Smith
I am a Canadian.
I am also liberally minded.
It was my opinion at that time that the problem was the guns that these people had easy access too.
It was my belief that the 2nd amendment could not be what it appeared to be and has been explained to be by most of academia since the day it’s ink was still wet.

So you are a Canadian liberal that has a problem with guns and believes that Americans have been misunderstanding the 2nd Amendment since the moment it is written.

Now you want us to believe that you look at this issue objectively?

FAIL.

Citizen of Arizona
@cleaner4d4

I am a libertarian. I am advocating everyone enjoy maximum freedom on both personal and economic issues as long as they do not bring violence unto others.

Theye have refused their Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

Theye have erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

Theye kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies

Theye have combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution,

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

Theye plundered and destroyed the lives of our people.

Theye are at this time transporting Armies of Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy of a civilized nation.

Step 1: “ A well regulated Militia” : OR Create and administer laws pertaining to people and Arms (guns are on trial)

Step 2: “being necessary to the security of a free State” (state of mind, peace, liberty, think butterflies and bunny rabbits, a society where gun violence is just an anomaly)

Step 3: “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms” ( output variables . some of the people get to keep some of the arms providing that these people and Arms do not violate step 2, which is to be arrived at by step 1.

Step 4: “shall not be infringed” (Do everything , do it in order and do not skip a step. No elected government can ignore this. The wiggle room has vanished.

At the time of the writing of the 2nd Amendment, "A well regulated Militia" was LOCALS. Every man, 14 and up, was part of the local militia that was to protect their community. ALL people could "bear arms"- men, women, and children.

"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” was exactly that. All people have a right to bear arms and to protect themselves- especially from a corrupt government.

Also gun violence in the US is DOWN and most shootings take place in......wait for it....wait for it......

At the time of the writing of the 2nd Amendment, "A well regulated Militia" was LOCALS. Every man, 14 and up, was part of the local militia that was to protect their community. ALL people could "bear arms"- men, women, and children.

"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” was exactly that. All people have a right to bear arms and to protect themselves- especially from a corrupt government.

Also gun violence in the US is DOWN and most shootings take place in......wait for it....wait for it......

GUN FREE ZONES.

SHOCKER!
An armed society is a polite society.
-Robert A. Heinlein-

Most mass shootings take place where there are lots of targets- people. The shooter is probably not thinking "gun free vs not gun free zone". Most total gun shootings occur in homes or on streets which are not gun free zones. (most gun deaths are actually suicides).

To better assess the reality of mass shootings in the United States—and to identify policies which could prevent them from occurring in the first place—Everytown analyzed every mass shooting we were able to identify in the United States from 2009-2016. This analysis uncovered the following findings:

From 2009-2016 in the U.S., there have been 156 mass shootings—incidents in which four or more people were shot and killed, not including the shooter. These incidents resulted in 1,187 victims shot: 848 people were shot and killed, and 339 people were shot and injured. In addition, 66 perpetrators killed themselves after a mass shooting, and another 17 perpetrators were shot and killed by responding law enforcement.The majority of mass shootings—54 percent of cases—were related to domestic or family violence.

Only ten percent of incidents took place in “gun-free zones”, or areas where civilians are prohibited from carrying firearms and there is not a regular armed law enforcement presence (armed security guards, for example). The vast majority of incidents—63 percent—took place entirely in private homes.

"The future is here, it's just not evenly distributed yet." - William Gibson

I am Zippy and I approve of this post. But you don't have to. This post may include statements I don't personally agree with.

Most mass shootings take place where there are lots of targets- people. The shooter is probably not thinking "gun free vs not gun free zone". Most total gun shootings occur in homes or on streets which are not gun free zones. (most gun deaths are actually suicides).

On the heels of the shooting in Fort Lauderdale that took the lives of five people, a new report has surfaced with some breathtaking statistics about where mass shootings take place.

According to the Crime Prevention Research Center, from the 1950’s through July 10th of 2016, 98.4 percent of mass shootings have occurred on gun-free zones, with just 1.6 percent occurring where citizens are allowed to have firearms with them.

The research was actually updated from a previous figure in response to an article written by the gun-control advocacy group Everytown.org, which attempted to dismiss the CPRC’s research, saying “the gun lobby’s claims that so-called “gun-free zones” endanger Americans are inconsistent with evidence.” The CPRC says that Everytown.org used both incomplete information, and used criteria that falls outside of what the FBI considers as qualifications for mass shootings.

The FBI definition of mass public shootings excludes “shootings that resulted from gang or drug violence” or that were part of some other crime. The FBI also defines “public” places as “includ[ing] commercial areas (divided into malls, businesses open to pedestrian traffic, and businesses closed to pedestrian traffic), educational environments (divided into schools [pre-kindergarten through 12th grade] and IHEs), open spaces, government properties (divided into military and other government properties), houses of worship, and health care facilities.”

The CPRC dismisses claims of “mass shootings” if they do not meet the FBI’s criteria, and gives an entire list of mass shootings that have occurred within the United States. It then debunks Everytown.org’s claims.

While the first part of the discussion here goes through each mass public shooting from 2009 to 2014 discussed in the Bloomberg report, further down in this post we have updated cases up through 2015 and the sources of older cases dating back to 1950. At the end of the post we have a response to Everytown’s response to our post. Using the data from 1950 through February 2016 has three mass public shootings in places where general citizens are allowed to have guns — that is just over 1 percent of the shootings over that period.

To see the list for yourself, follow the link here.

Very recently, state lawmakers have begun moving to eliminate gun-free zones in various places, including two bills introduced into the Florida Senate and House that allows for carry within airports and government buildings, as well as one in Kentucky to allow firearms to be carried in schools.

UPDATE: While the first part of the discussion here goes through each mass public shooting from 2009 to 2014 discussed in the Bloomberg report, further down in this post we have updated cases up through 2015 and the sources of older cases dating back to 1950. At the end of the post we have a response to Everytown’s response to our post. Using the data from 1950 through February 2016 has three mass public shootings in places where general citizens are allowed to have guns — that is just over 1 percent of the shootings over that period.

ORIGINAL POST: Why does anyone pay attention to Bloomberg’s claims on guns? Take their previous discussions on mass public shootings. As we have previously pointed out, Bloomberg’s groups have made serious errors on the number (see also here) and trends of school shootings. Well, that hasn’t stopped the media from sympathetically covering Everytown for Gun Safety’s recent report on mass shootings (see also here).

Everytown for Gun Safety’s recent report on mass shootings contains many errors. In addition, it muddies the discussion on mass public shootings by including shootings in private homes along with ones in public places, and the vast majority of the cases they include are in private homes. But there is a distinction between what motivates mass public shooters who are committing their crimes to get media attention and those who engage in attacks in private residences.

There are no crimes against people.
There are only crimes against the state.
And the state will never, ever choose to hold accountable its agents, because a thing can not commit a crime against itself.

Oh I'm sorry in case it wasn't abundantly clear that means I actually do not want you ever to touch my code.

There are no crimes against people.
There are only crimes against the state.
And the state will never, ever choose to hold accountable its agents, because a thing can not commit a crime against itself.

....You're gonna use this as a reason to $#@! with my code, aren't you....

There are no crimes against people.
There are only crimes against the state.
And the state will never, ever choose to hold accountable its agents, because a thing can not commit a crime against itself.

The definition used there rules out about 90% of shootings since most occur in the home. Also rules out crimes and gang related. The Blaze has their own biases. Your own post only used the term "shootings" and not even "mass shootings". The Blaze article only includes shootings which occurred in public spaces and their info comes from a pro-gun group. "Shootings" covers a considerably larger category of events. You can change the figures by changing definitions. (actually you didn't even say mass shootings so I really used a more narrow definition than your post wording would have allowed).

and most shootings take place in......wait for it....wait for it......

Depending on where you get your news, Thursday’s shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, was the 294th mass shooting, the 295th, or the 45th school shooting of the year. As Dave Cullen wrote in New Republic, news outlets will get the facts wrong in the immediate aftermath of an attack, but the conflicting news reports point to a more serious problem in America’s discussion of its gun problem. Gun control advocates rely heavily on the shocking numbers to make their case, but statistical discrepancies allow opponents to easily undermine the arguments. There’s no case to be made when everyone gets to view the evidence on their own terms.

The confusion stems from varying governmental categorizations. There are mass murders and mass killings, active shooters and serial killers, mass shootings and mass public shootings. For instance, Mass Shooting Tracker, a crowd-sourced website that many news outlets use, defines a mass shooting as one with “four or more people shot in one event.” In other words, they include incidents in which four people are wounded, but no one is killed. Accordingly, the database considers the Umpqua shooting the 295th mass shooting of the year.

The FBI, by contrast, doesn’t have an official definition of “mass shooting” on the books, but in 2014 defined a “mass killing” as one with three or more fatalities in a report about active shooters—“an individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and populated area,” like at Columbine or Newtown. Using the three-fatality threshold, the Oregon shooting is the 54th mass killing of 2015. But in July, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) defined a mass shooting as a homicide in which four or more people are killed with firearms—a definition based on the FBI’s definition of a “mass murder” as opposed to a “mass shooting.” Under that definition, the Oregon shooting is the 32nd such incident in 2015.

The conflation of “active shooter,” “mass murder,” and “mass shooting” has allowed the gun lobby to discredit statistics that point to the need for further control. The 2014 FBI report showed that active shooting incidents were increasing, but the NRA and other groups complained that this did not necessarily mean mass shootings were also increasing. Opponents of gun control can claim, like Jeb Bush did on Friday, that “stuff happens,” implying such incidents are just a fact of modern life.

Similarly, Northeastern University criminologist James Alan Fox has said that the inclusion of statistics from the FBI’s “active shooter” report gives the false impression that incidents are rising when they are not. “A majority of active shooters are not mass shooters,” Fox told Time. “A majority kill fewer than three.” On Friday, Fox wrote in USA Today that “media folks reminded us of the unforgettable, high profile shootings that have taken place over the past few months, hinting of a problem that has grown out of control… as if there is a pattern emerging.”

Last edited by Zippyjuan; 07-13-2017 at 04:44 PM.

"The future is here, it's just not evenly distributed yet." - William Gibson

I am Zippy and I approve of this post. But you don't have to. This post may include statements I don't personally agree with.

The definition used there rules out about 90% of shootings since most occur in the home. Also rules out crimes and gang related. The Blaze has their own biases. Your own post only used the term "shootings" and not even "mass shootings". The Blaze article only includes shootings which occurred in public spaces and their info comes from a pro-gun group. "Shootings" covers a considerably larger category of events. You can change the figures by changing definitions. (actually you didn't even say mass shootings so I really used a more narrow definition than your post wording would have allowed).

I'm a historian, undergraduate and graduate level, and a writer of books (the type of books you can buy on Amazon). What you have written is not new and is complete rubbish.

First issue is what was meant by well regulated - a dictionary might be a useful-l place to start the investigation, to wit:
regulate transitive verb

1a : to govern or direct according to rule b (1) : to bring under the control of law or constituted authority (2) : to make regulations for or concerning regulate the industries of a country

2 : to bring order, method, or uniformity to regulate one's habits

3 : to fix or adjust the time, amount, degree, or rate of regulate the pressure of a tire

Which meaning did the authors of the Second Amendment intend? The Militia Act of 1792 provides an answer - they used all three meanings, by specifying which able bodied citizens between the ages of 18 and 45 were required to have militia membership, the weaponry and equipment they were required to possess, and the organizational structure of militia units.

Next interesting phrase is to keep and bear arms. Keep is very clear - to possess as property. Let us look more closely at the phrase bear arms (we can skip the noun bear, as the intransitive verb is the operative part here):

- bear arms
1. : to carry or possess arms
2. : to serve as a soldier

Again the Militia Act and the militia clause serve to cover both meanings of the phrase bear arms as specified in Sections 10 and 11 of said Act. The people have an enshrined right to form their own military units for their individual and common defense.

That is the startling part of the Second Amendment. It means what it says.

Out of every one hundred men they send us, ten should not even be here. Eighty will do nothing but serve as targets for the enemy. Nine are real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, upon them depends our success in battle. But one, ah the one, he is a real warrior, and he will bring the others back from battle alive.

Duty is the most sublime word in the English language. Do your duty in all things. You can not do more than your duty. You should never wish to do less than your duty.

Or you could read anything by John Lott, an economist and statistician at U Maryland, who had no dog in the gun control argument until he was asked to write a paper on it and discovered that the only numbers that existed were objectively crap.
He turned pro-gun in the process of doing the actual research.

There are no crimes against people.
There are only crimes against the state.
And the state will never, ever choose to hold accountable its agents, because a thing can not commit a crime against itself.

All the overwhelming historical evidence aside, If you want to strictly analyze the clause, here is an objective analysis. Consider this phrase:

"A well educated Electorate, being necessary to self-governance in a free State, the right of the people to keep and read Books, shall not be infringed."

This provision, which is grammatically identical to the Second Amendment, obviously means the following: because a well educated electorate is necessary to the health of a free state, the right of the people to keep and read books shall not be infringed.
The sentence does not say, imply, or even suggest that only registered voters have a right to books.
Nor does the sentence say, imply, or even suggest that the right to books may be exercised only by state employees.
Nor does the lack of identity between the electorate and the people create some kind of grammatical or linguistic tension within the sentence.
It is perfectly reasonable for a constitution to give everyone a right to books as a means of fostering a well educated electorate. The goal might or might not be reached, and it could have been pursued by numerous other means. The creation of a general individual right, moreover, would certainly have other effects besides its impact on the electorate's educational level. And lots of legitimate questions could be raised about the scope of the right to books. But none of this offers the slightest reason to be mystified by the basic meaning of the sentence. The Second Amendment is no different.
- A Primer on the Constitutional Right to Keep and Bear Arms. (2002).

Last edited by AZJoe; 07-17-2017 at 06:31 PM.

"Let it not be said that we did nothing." - Dr. Ron Paul.
"Stand up for what you believe in, even if you are standing alone." - Sophie Magdalena Scholl
"War is the health of the State." - Randolph Bourne
"Freedom is the answer. ... Now, what's the question?" - Ernie Hancock.

First issue is what was meant by well regulated - a dictionary might be a useful-l place to start the investigation

And specifically to look at what was meant by the term from the time period the Bill of Rights was written. From Law Reviews:

The eighteenth century usage of “regulate” had the more specialized meaning of “practiced in the use of arms, properly trained, and/or disciplined.” - Under Fire: The New Consensus on the Second Amendment, 45 Emory L. J. 1139, 1208 (1996) citing Robert Dowlut, The Right to Arms, 36 Okla L. Rev. 65, 92 n. 133 (1983).

[I]n eighteenth century military usage, “well regulated” meant “properly disciplined,” not “government controlled.” - The Second Amendment, Political ?Liberty and the right to Self-Preservation, 39 Ala L. Rev. 103, 107 (1987).

And how about some specific examples of the term "well regulated" provided by the Oxford English Dictionary:

1709 - “If a liberal Education has formed in us ... well-regulated Appetites, and worthy Inclinations.”;
1714 - “The practice of all well-regulated courts of justice in the world.”;
1812 - “The equation of time...is the adjustment of the difference of time, as shown by a well-regulated clock and a true sun dial.”;
1848 - “A remissness for which I am sure every well-regulated person will blame the Major.”;
1862 - “It appeared to her well-regulated mind, like a clandestine proceeding.”;
1894 - “The newspaper, a never wanting adjunct to every well-regulated American embryo city.”

Last edited by AZJoe; 07-13-2017 at 09:03 PM.

"Let it not be said that we did nothing." - Dr. Ron Paul.
"Stand up for what you believe in, even if you are standing alone." - Sophie Magdalena Scholl
"War is the health of the State." - Randolph Bourne
"Freedom is the answer. ... Now, what's the question?" - Ernie Hancock.

"I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials."— George Mason, in Debates in Virginia Convention on Ratification of the Constitution, Elliot, Vol. 3, June 16, 1788

"Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American...[T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people." --Tenche Coxe, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.

"Whereas, to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them; nor does it follow from this, that all promiscuously must go into actual service on every occasion. The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle; and when we see many men disposed to practice upon it, whenever they can prevail, no wonder true republicans are for carefully guarding against it."--Richard Henry Lee, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.

"What, Sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty .... Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins."-- Rep. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, spoken during floor debate over the Second Amendment, I Annals of Congress at 750, August 17, 1789

"The militia is the natural defense of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpation of power by rulers. The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of the republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally ... enable the people to resist and triumph over them."-- Joseph Story, Supreme Court Justice, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, p. 3:746-7, 1833